ing youth who give character to our schools. Formerly there prevailed here in the United States a strict discipline that rested on corporal punishment. This has yielded by degrees to punishment founded on a sense of honor-the deprivation of the pupil's privilege to sit with his fellows, to partake in the common class exercises, or finally the suspension from school altogether. The punishments have changed or are in process of changing from corrective punishment, which inflicts pain irrespective of the nature of the fault committed, to retributive punishment, which returns the deed upon the pupil and makes him suffer its consequences. The pupil by his disorder deprives himself of the privilege of sharing in the work of the school.

The change in methods of discipline does not change the nature of the American boy from an adventure loving to a knowledge-loving boy, however. But he learns to govern himself.

The German principle leads to a very radical difference in teaching science and other branches. They teach comparative science, comparative history, etc., it has been said. It may be said, too, that the chief aim of all German instruction is to teach the philosophy of the subject. There shall be nothing fragmentary and detached, but all shall be systematically subordinated to the ruling principle. The subject treated in view of the whole, becomes a view of the world, or rather we may say there is reflected in each subject as taught by the German professor, the entire view of the world.

Thus the German normal school demands of its graduate the ability to construct from his own knowledge and insight each one of the branches that he is called upon to teach. He shall not depend upon the textbook for the matter or the form of his instruction. German instruction insists, before all, on comprehension rather than memorizing. The pupil shall be led to see the inner necessity of the subject; to see the unity which makes the whole into a system.

Here is a great advantage that German instruction has over that of other nations-it gives to the pupil an instinct for anticipating the results of experience. Kant showed in his immortal "Kritik" how the structure of the mind gives to it certain "anticipations of perception." So comparative study in all departments of science and history gives anticipations of experience. The Agassiz or Cuvier has become so well able to anticipate experience, that even a fish-scale or a bone gives him with practical certainty the rest of the animal. Comparative study leads to nature's unity, and gives an insight into the necessity that governs the world of experience.

No doubt this has its limits and that such a priori "anticipation" is often mistaken. But it is practically the kind of knowledge which furnishes the basis for nearly all our deeds. At all events the German method of instruction owes to this its distinctive characteristic and whatever superiority it may have, and the German pupil has accordingly a higher gift of anticipating new knowledge than any other pupil.

In this connection is to be noted the fact that German instruction discards rivalry and competition, and also that it makes less use of examinations than the instruction of other nations. Competition in studies requires that the standard of comparison be one that all grades of mind can see. It must not be in the least arbitrary. This reduces the standard to one of sense perception and memory. Only mechanical results may be measured with precision. But as German methods relate to the comprehension of the subject and endeavor to give the pupil a comparative insight into the gerreral principles that create the details, it is obvious that nothing can be done in the way of applying mechanical tests to the pupil's acquisitions. Hence, too, examinations for promotion can not be used to good advantage. It is only the daily class exercise which reveals to the teacher the inward growth of the pupil's power of comprehension.

Examinations are often for the purpose of spurring the pupil to make review of his past work. It must be remembered that the method of comparative study connects all the details in a higher unity and thus gives a new hold of the earlier steps at each stage of advance. The German method of instruction is therefore a perpetual review of the most valuable kind.

But there is here a drawback which other nations are ready to point out. The German can not prescribe set tasks for his pupils to perform at home at least he can not do this so well as the pedagogues of other nations. The text-book system of instruction relies on the pupil's independent work. He must study his book and learn to master the thoughts stored up in the printed page. But he will quite naturally use his lower faculties of perception and memory rather than the higher ones of insight and critical comparison. Moreover, as already said, it is easier for the teacher to hold the pupil responsible for mechanical work than for comprehension.

The advantage in the mechanical method of instruction is that it can demand and secure independent work from the pupil-even from the restless and frivolous pupil who does not love knowledge. If he does not comprehend he can at least cram the forms of knowledge and store them away for a possible future use. Moreover, the mechanical effort gives a species of mental discipline and cultivates the will power. It is, therefore, believed by the educators of other nations that the less gifted pupils of the German school do not profit so much as they would under the mechanical system of instruction. Failing to comprehend the subject as a whole, failing to seize the soul of the comparative method, they remain confused and ineffective, not even retaining useful details which might have been learned by memorizing. Whether the percentage of German pupils who find the school work profitless is as large as the percentage of corresponding classes in English schools is a question not determined.

But without a mechanical basis for classification and promotion it follows that the German can not lay so much stress on the grading of pupils as is done in other nations.

In this connection it is pointed out that the people's schools and the citizens' higher schools do not make their course of study a part or section of the course of study that fits the pupil for the university. The classics are commenced so early in the gymnasia that the pupils who graduate from the citizen' school find a barrier in the way if they wish to enter the university. They must go back and enter classes of younger pupils in order to make up their Latin and Greek. This neglect to provide an easy transition from all parts of the primary and secondary work to the superior instruction is a serious defect in the German system.

In the statistics given (page 164) it will be seen that the education. of women is in much the same backward condition as in France. While in the primary schools the number of girls is equal to the num ber of boys, in the secondary schools there are four times as many boys as girls, while the universities are exclusively for men.

The universities of Prussia report 22,847 students for 28,000,000 people, while the universities of Austria report 18,405 for 23,000,000. Hungary for 17,000,000 people reports 8,106 students in universities and technical schools, while Switzerland reports 3,529 for its 3,000,000 people. It is not stated in any instance what proportion of these students are from other countries. The secondary students are reported at 356,912 for Prussia; 190,196 (including also the technical and other special schools) for Austria; 39,918 (same inclusion) for Hungary; 18,206 for Switzerland.

There is great difficulty in ascertaining the exact meaning of many items of statistics given in the reports of different countries. This will be often observed by the reader of these statements. Our specialists have chosen rather to run the risk of printing paradoxes than by suppressing important items of statistics to lose the opportunity of exciting the criticism and investigation which is sure to bring out the sifted results for a future report. For example, we note that the normal schools of Prussia with a 3-years' course enroll only 8,507 pupils, giving an annual supply of less than 3,000 graduates to fill the vacancies in a corps of 75,000 teachers.. If the schools depended wholly on these graduates to supply vacancies, it would imply an average service of 25 years for each teacher. But the increase of the schools alone would require 1,000 new teachers per year. Berlin reports 108 new teachers for a corps of 3,000, which would give an average annual service of 28 years; but if 102 of these are to be deducted for the supply of new schools opened, the term of service would on that datum be much greater, say 500 years for each teacher!

It is noted that while Prussia has 106 normal schools for men, it has only 8 for women. But there are 38 normal schools for Catholic teachers.

The very large number of pupils per teacher reported (70 to 80) is calculated to excite a suspicion as to its accuracy, even making allowance for the fact that the German method of instruction does not require so much or so careful an examination of the individual pupil as the methods of other countries. If the statistics mean that the total number enrolled by each teacher in the year is 80 or 90, while the actual average attendance is much less-say two-thirds-the case is less difficult to understand. Or, if there are pupil teachers who assist according to the Lancasterian plan in vogue in England, the explanation is still better. In the United States the average attendance for each teacher of the elementary schools falls below 40 pupils, and there is much outery on the part of the friends of good instruction to the effect that there should be fewer rather than more pupils assigned to each teacher.

Under the item of sources of revenue it will be noted that Prussia pays 18 per cent. of the expenses of the lower schools, while the local districts pay the balance. It is interesting to note that the income from the permanent school fund provides only 6 per centum of the entire expenses. In the United States the permanent funds furnish only a little more than 7 per cent. of the entire cost of the schools.

THE SCHOOLS OF ITALY.*

There are two territories in Europe which have been battle grounds for the other nations-the lowlands north of France and the peninsula of Italy. England and central Europe, jealous of the power of France, could never permit her to extend her boundary to the North Sea, for that would mean the entire control of all the western outlets of Europe But with France confined south of Flanders, England has been able to hold sway over these waters and her maritime greatness is the result. But Belgium has been the fighting ground for English, French, Spanish, and Austrian. So, too, Italy has been the field on which Germany, Spain, and France have contended for the balance of power since Charlemagne founded the Holy Roman Empire. Rome had been at one time the chief center of political power. Charlemagne gave it a new center in northwest Europe. Subsequent centuries saw the attempts of the German Emperors to fix their capital in Italy again. But the Atlantic powers, Spain and France, could not permit such a combination. If Germany absorbed Italy, there would be no stability for the western powers. Hence the protracted wars to settle the limits of the Empire. During the Crusades, the Italian cities, taking advantage of their position between the east and west, gained great wealth and influence, securing by means of it their independence. Italy broke up into small powers jealous of each other and continually at war. The same discord penetrated each city, and there were parties within the walls ready to let in the common enemy in order to triumph over their fellow citizens with

* Statements in Chapter VI-Italy-prepared by Miss F. G. French.

whom they had feuds. Dante has given us in his great poem the reflec. tion of this fearful state of political chaos, and in his De Monarchia has reasoned out the conditions of peace for the world by forming a single government that swallows up all nations-a rehabilitation of the ideal that ancient Rome sought to achieve in the interest of her theory of civil freedom-all equal before the one law of the world, and the temple of Janus forever closed.

Rome has controlled the world, first politically and then ecclesiastically. But the development of the Italian people as a people has been arrested by the long ages of foreign complication and the internal schisms incident to this prominent place in history. No people can develop its own native aptitudes without freedom from foreign sway. The forward movement of modern civilization is in the direction of realizing rational individualism in the form of local self-government. Thus it implies progress in the education of all strata of the people from the lowest up. It implies the means of intercommunication and access to the spectacle of the movements of the world through newspapers and books. There must be a universal ability to read and the use of that ability. There must be the conquest of nature by labor-saving machinery and productive industry so that there may be thrift and wealth abundant-progress along these lines of the elevation of the people into a free participation in rational activity. This is the progress that our civilization demands, and it measures it not alone by the strength and wisdom of the leading classes, but by the general diffusion of intelligence and productive power among the people as a whole. The union. of Italy under an Italian king has led to a wonderful progress in this latter aspect. Italy has been famous for higher education for many centuries. But the common people were not provided for and the amount of illiteracy was very great. As late as 1861, on the accession of Victor Emanuel to kingship of all Italy except Venetia and the Papal Territory, out of a total population of 21,777,331 there were 16,999,701 reported as unable to read and write.

In 1871 the number of illiterates over 15 years was reported at 69 per cent. This had been reduced 10 years later (1881) to 62 per cent., and in 1889 still further to 48 per cent.

In no State of Europe has more strenuous effort been made to provide for education by public schools. The expenditure for 1886 amounted to about $20,000,000, of which the national government furnished nearly one-third. Over 10 per cent. of the entire population are enrolled in school. The schools are free, without tuition fees, and a compulsory law insures some 4 years of schooling (since 1877) to all. This will very rapidly reduce the illiteracy and increase the productivity of the nation. The States of northern Italy, and especially Piedmont, have made by far the most progress in popular education, and it is noteworthy that the freedom and unity of Italy have come from the section where popular education has been most cared for.